After telecom companies, Chinese oil majors may face US delisting

Chinese oil majors may be next in line for delisting in the US after the New York Stock Exchange said last week it would remove the Asian nation’s three biggest telecom companies.

China’s largest offshore oil producer CNOOC could be most at risk as it’s on the Pentagon’s list of companies it says are owned or controlled by Chinese military, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Henik Fung. PetroChina and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., also known as Sinopec, may also be under threat as the energy sector is crucial to China’s military, he said.

“More Chinese companies could get delisted in the US and the oil majors could come as the next wave,” said Steven Leung, executive director at UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong. At the same time, the impact of removing the telecom firms is probably minimal as they were thinly-traded in the US and they haven’t raised much funds there, he said.

The NYSE said it would delist the telecom operators to comply with a US executive order imposing restrictions on companies identified as affiliated with the Chinese military. China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom  and China Unicom Hong Kong would all be suspended from trading between January 7 and January 11, and proceedings to delist them have started, the exchange said.

China’s Ministry of Commerce responded on Saturday, saying the country would take necessary action to protect the rights of Chinese companies and it hoped the two countries could work together to create a fair and predictable environment for businesses and investors.